


It's like Reading Tea Leaves in a Pewter Cauldron

by butwhatifdragons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Divination, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Loneliness, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Professor Draco Malfoy, Professor Ron Weasley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-09 06:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17401421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butwhatifdragons/pseuds/butwhatifdragons
Summary: Being Ron Weasley is a whole lot lonelier than he had ever imagined he would be, but then Draco Malfoy walks right back into his life and teaches him what it is like to live again.





	It's like Reading Tea Leaves in a Pewter Cauldron

**Author's Note:**

> I have been wanting to write a Draco/Ron fic for ages!!! I took a few liberties with the plot of the books, which should be easy to spot, but I wanted to point out the purposeful nature of the inaccuracies. I'll add characters and tags as the story gets to them.
> 
> ~~Perhaps one day I'll sit down and write a better summary.~~  
> 
> Hope you enjoy, and lemme know what you think. ♥

Ron comes back to Hogwarts last. Teaching has never exactly been in his career plans. He wasn’t that good of a student, always too eager to rouse about with Harry and Hermione and skiv off schoolwork. He isn’t sure he is going to be that good of a professor, either, but he is tired of spinning his wheels.

He loves the shop, managing it and building it and seeing the looks on kids’ faces when a particular prank gets them all riled up. He loves owning it and having something to his name. He no longer feels like he has stepped into Fred’s shadow, taking over the shop with George after the war.

But something has to give. He has handled the location in Hogsmeade all on his own for the better part of two years, and though George tries to convince him otherwise, Ron doesn’t think he has it in him to start another branch from scratch. There is an itch beneath his skin. He feels like, some days, he might pop out of his own body, explode into hundreds of thousands of tiny specs of Ron Weasley and they’ll splatter all over the front room wall.

Sometimes, Ron thinks about packing a suitcase and getting the hell out of Dodge and never, ever looking back. But the problem is that he doesn’t know where he would go if he were to leave. He doesn’t really want to leave, either. He just wants… well, he isn’t sure what he wants.

All around him, people are moving on with their lives. They are getting married and having children and gallivanting across the globe like their tails are on fire. Not Ron. No, Ron is exactly the same place he was ten years ago when the wizarding world went belly up and the war, against all odds, finally ended. The only difference between now and then is that he hasn’t dated Hermione in over half a decade. He hasn’t lived at the Burrow for even longer.

Ron lives in the apartment above the Hogsmeade branch of the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. He has lived there since the place opened, and he has seen many Hogwarts students pass through. Neville stops by occasionally, taking a break from his Herbology classes to talk about how he wants to ask Luna to settle down and marry him. Sometimes, when she is in town, Ginny stays over night, but she is hardly ever in one place with her career as a quidditch player taking from here to there.

Harry and Hermione visit, too. They’re old friends and nothing, not even a somewhat bitter break up, can pull them apart for too long. But they, too, are moving on with their lives. They’ve got marriages—Harry to Ginny and Hermione to Ron’s own brother, George—and they’re starting families, and Ron is happy for them. He is.

Except he isn’t. Not really. He isn’t where they are. He hasn’t slept in the same bed with another body in years. He has long since stopped dropping by the Three Broomsticks or the Hogshead for any other reason other than to get a nice drink after a long day of work. He is lonely, lonely in only the way a person can get when they have been alone in the world for far too long and nobody else they know is lonely themselves.

So it is hard to watch Harry and Hermione move on with their lives when Ron is stuck in place, like a feather suspended by a levitating charm.

Maybe that is why, when the old Order of the Phoenix crowd are all gathered at the Hogshead one rainy August evening, Ron takes Professor McGonagall up on her offer. Harry is teaching at school now, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he has settled into his new post-Auror department life like a fish would settle in new water. Hermione is teaching there, too, at Professor McGonagall’s old post, Transfiguration, and Ron is tired of being alone.

 “I seem to recall you had quite the knack for Divination, Mr. Weasley,” says Professor McGonagall, after perhaps one too many firewhiskeys. She throws them back like a true pro. For a moment, Ron has trouble remembering her as his ex-professor. Professors don’t slur their words like drunk sailors. “Why don’t you take the position?”

Ron bellows out a laugh. Or maybe a hiccup. He should know by now that he shouldn’t try to drink Professor McGonagall under the table. Some faint part of him, the part that maybe still thinks of her as his ex-professor, thinks it is weird he is even in a situation to share a drink with her in the first place.

“Failed the O.W.L.s, didn’t I?”

“Pish,” says Professor McGonagall, waving off his statement like one might push aside an annoying gnat. “Examinations are often poor indicators of aptitude.”

She gets Aberforth’s attention to order another firewhiskey. Ron wonders if he can somehow ask Aberforth to switch her to water without getting transfigured into a frog or something. He decides not to try his luck. Professor McGonagall is deadly with a wand, intoxicated or not.

Across the table from him, Harry is grinning ear-to-ear in amusement at Ron’s predicament. Nobody likes a talkative, drunk Professor McGonagall—especially when she is scouring the Earth for a divination professor as she has been for the past few weeks. Harry had had the foresight to sneak in the door right in front of Ron and steal the only remaining seat out of Professor McGonagall’s reach.

Ron flips him the bird, hiding it behind his mug of butterbeer. Harry only lets out a jolly laugh and returns his attention to whatever sort of magical creature Luna is talking his ear off about next to him.

They are a good crowd, this old crew of mismatched witches and wizards. Half of Ron’s brothers are here, scattered around the tavern. Most of the remaining Hogwarts professors who had fought in the war are here, too. Stray members of the Order of the Phoenix are dotted here and there. Old Sturgis Podmore is stuck in the back with Hagrid and newly retired Professor Slughorn, and all three of them are singing off-key to some old bar song that Ron knows he won’t be able to get out of his head all day tomorrow, like usual after a bar night. Several of the old Dumbledore’s Army crew are dispersed around the crowd here, too. Dean and Seamus share an intimate table all to themselves. Even Cho Chang has showed up tonight, though she is drinking only pumpkin juice in the wake of her brilliant announcement.

They do this once a month, on the Friday after the half-moon. It started out years ago as a way to deal with the awful repercussions of the war. People needed shoulders to lean on, shoulders belonging to those for whom they bled and alongside whom they fought. They kept on coming, filling the Hogshead sometimes so full that Aberforth had to bring out extra chairs from the back and they all have to sit elbow-to-elbow around the tabletops.

“I seem to recall that, without your… affinity, Potter and Granger would have been doomed from the very beginning. Or are you forgetting that night in the castle, when Professor Dumbledore died and Death Eaters entered Hogwarts?”

Ron doesn’t necessarily make it a habit to remember everything that happened in the war or else he will go mad, but he thinks back to that dark night, staring at a blank wall and then nothing at all as blackness enveloped his vision. Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, it had been. Ron had known it almost the instant it hit his senses. Growing up as the younger brother of Fred and George Weasley meant that he was often chosen as the guinea pig for their latest inventions. He recognized their signature magic, the flair in it that almost seemed to be laughing at him. It was like stepping into their old bedroom at the Burrow and taking a deep breath of the magic that permeated the air.

Almost immediately, maybe a fraction of a second after identifying their magic, Ron had been stuck with another realization that was just as stark and as real as the first: danger had come to Hogwarts like they feared, and it was right here with them, and Ron himself had urged Harry to take the whole vial of Felix Felicis with him, because if any of them needed it, it was Harry.

But as the realization became more of a sensation that seemed to trickle down Ron’s spine, leading straight to his feet, Ron didn’t need a single drop of luck to lead him and the others all the way out of the darkness. He just—he could _see_ where he needed to set each footfall, even with his eyes blinded by the darkness.

Then suddenly, they were all out of the darkness and on the heels of the group of invading Death Eaters. They hadn’t been able to stop all of the Death Eaters. There were too many of them, but Ron had gotten a good spell off on Selwyn, and Ginny had gotten taken aim at Travers, and Neville, ever the Gryffindor, had gone straight for Bellatrix Lestrange.

It wasn’t much, their effort to stop the Death Eaters. They were, after all, merely five half-trained witches and wizards up against the darkest, most skilled Death Eaters Lord Voldemort had to offer. Bellatrix screamed at the force to keep going, that she would handle the pesky group of kids—that she would have fun with Longbottom—and the rest of the Death Eaters had disappeared through a magic-sealed door.

It wasn’t much, their effort, but Bellatrix Lestrange never made it to the Lightning-Struck Tower where Harry and Professor Dumbledore were already outnumbered by the Death Eaters. Later, long after the Felix Felicis had worn off Harry and Professor Dumbledore was dead and the Death Eaters had escaped, they had learned the truth.

It wasn’t much, their effort, but it was enough, for Bellatrix Lestrange had been on a one-witch mission that night: to take Hogwarts and everything it stood for.

By taking Hogwarts, it would have devastated the resistance against Lord Voldemort. It would have separated the growing student army. It would have destroyed the most important stronghold of the Order of the Phoenix. Most importantly, it would have ensured total control of the next generation of magic.

While eventually Hogwarts had seemingly fallen into Death Eater hands anyway when the next school year dawned, it was under Severus Snape, a double agent for Dumbledore, and not Bellatrix Lestrange, whose love for the Cruciatus Curse was greater than the Alecto siblings’ were combined.

So maybe Hogwarts had dodged a muggle bullet, if only be the skin of its teeth, but that didn’t mean that Ron had anything to do with it. He had merely been following his instincts. He hadn’t pulled out a tea cup and read the leaves at the bottom to find the way out of the darkness.

“I thought you didn’t think much of divination,” says Ron, ignoring, for a moment, the implication of Professor McGonagall’s words. He pushes aside thoughts of the war until they are all back where they belong, hidden away in the back of his mind where he isn’t as apt to drag them back out by happenstance. “I figured once Trelawney left, you’d get rid of the course altogether.”

Professor McGonagall shrugs. For such a firm, no-nonsense witch, it rolls off her shoulders rather well. Ron takes another drink of butterbeer in an attempt not to pick apart how odd it is, even after all of these years, that Professor McGonagall is closer to _Minerva_ then, well, Professor McGonagall.

“There are those who do not think much of Transfiguration, either, and yet I made it my life’s work,” she answers, after a moment. The lines around her eyes draw a little tighter. “Sybill and I did not see eye-to-eye on the art of divination, but even I must admit the prudence of hanging onto the subject.”

Her gaze drifts over to Harry then where he is engrossed in whatever tale Luna is recounting. The scar on his forehead is ever visible beneath the fringe of his bangs. Even years after the war, over half of a decade since it last pained him, it is his defining feature. Ron isn’t naïve enough to think that Professor McGonagall is not acutely aware of exactly why Lord Voldemort had hunted down the Potters on that Halloween night so long ago. All of the old, important members of the Order of the Phoenix were afforded such insight at one point or another during the war.

She looks back at Ron after a couple of seconds and stops beating around the bush.

“What d’you say, Mr. Weasley, to taking the position?”

He doesn’t have an immediate answer for her, which catches him off guard. The question sobers him like a Morning-After potion. He runs his pointer finger along the top ring of his mug, collecting the condensation until it spills over the side and makes a jagged line down the outside of the glass, wondering why in Merlin’s name he hasn’t told her no yet.

Maybe the truth is that he knows exactly why the idea of coming back to Hogwarts, even to teach divination, a subject that he isn’t sure can be taught, is tempting. The shop is lonely. It is work that has become tedious and, over the years, maybe a little suffocating. He loves the shop, of course. He couldn’t imagine not doing it, not even if he were to take Professor McGonagall up on her offer, but he isn’t so satisfied anymore with the place he seems to be stuck in.

Besides, Harry is at Hogwarts. So is Hermione. That in and of itself is so tempting to halt an immediate negative answer, even though he knows it will not be the same. They won’t be living in Gryffindor Tower or sneaking through the corridors in the middle of the night. Hermione doesn’t even live at the castle. Most of the time, Harry doesn’t either.

Still, they would still see each other at meals, and they would still be in one place, something they haven’t been since the years after they graduated and lived together in Grimmauld Place. Ron misses those days. He misses the simplicity of them. He misses hearing about their days every evening at dinner. Now, he does well to owl them or catch Harry at the Burrow a couple of times a month.

Being Ron Weasley is a whole lonelier than he had ever imagined it would be, and maybe that is why he doesn’t shoot Professor McGonagall down like any proper wizard propositioned with the position of teaching divination should.  

“All right,” he says, and he watches with amusement as Professor McGonagall, a firm, no-nonsense witch who he has never seen flabbergasted, chokes on her next swig of firewhiskey. “I’ll take the job—but if you think for a minute that I won’t predict the death of at least one third year just for old time’s sake, you’re wrong.”

He throws back the rest of his butterbeer, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he’s done. He reaches into his pocket and digs out a handful of sickles that should cover his tab. He stuck mostly to butterbeer after a few rounds of firewhiskey, and Aberforth always did them a good deal on nights like this, when the taste of war was still bitter on the backs of everybody’s tongues.

“The term starts Monday, _Professor_ Weasley,” says Professor McGonagall, once she has caught her breath again. Except for the splatter of firewhiskey down the front of her emerald robes, evidenced only by the darker splotches here and there, it is impossible to tell that Ron had bested her, if only for a moment. “Your quarters will be ready by tomorrow afternoon, should you require them.”

Ron nods once at her, hardly able to believe that he is anywhere near drunk enough to truly think this is a good idea. He is probably going to wake up hating himself tomorrow, but he doesn’t take back his acceptance. A tiny voice in the back of his mind whispers that he needs this. He needs a change of scenery, even if just for a year.

He bids Harry goodbye and then the rest of the room in general. He stumbles out of the Hog’s Head into the sweltering summer night. The alcohol sloshes around in his belly, and he sways as he walks in the general direction back to the shop. The streets are nearly dead around him. Patrons walk in and out of the Three Broomsticks, but one quick glance through the dingy window proves that it isn’t nearly as packed as the bar Ron had just left.

As he walks, he runs his hand alongside the walls of the business that line the main street. Magic buzzes in the air around him. He loves it here in Hogsmeade. He loves bar nights with the old gang. He loves the way that the alcohol makes him feel lighter than air. There is a lot to love about his life, but he doesn’t love the loneliness that has sank deep into his bones, so far down that he doubts anything will ever chase it away.

When he gets to the shop, he lets himself in through the back, locks up after himself, and climbs the stairs to his living quarters. They are nothing fancy. He has a kitchen with a wobbly table that seats two, a living area with an old hand-me-down sofa from Bill pushed up underneath the windows, and a door with a creaky hinge that leads back to his bedroom. It is far from the mansion he had dreamed of owning as a kid, but he would never know what to do with such empty space anyway.

He doesn’t bother flipping on any lights. The moonlight streaming in through his windows illuminate the main room enough for him to navigate around his pile of quidditch gear forgotten in the corner since last weekend’s pick-up game against George and Ginny at the Burrow. He barely kicks off his shoes before he crawls into his unmade bed, still dressed in his Magenta workrobes and smelling like firewhiskey from the bar.

He prays that he falls asleep before the overwhelming silence of his empty living quarters crush him.

 

He doesn’t.

 

He lays awake, drunk and melancholy, for most of the night.


End file.
